Glitch
by Kanthia
Summary: She didn't mean to do it. It was all a mistake. All she did was talk to that old man, fly to Cinnabar and accidentally surf up and down the broken coast. II: Please, take me home to Glitch City.
1. Glitch

**Glitch**  
_/it was the type of thing that could kill you if you weren't careful_

**Word Count:** 837  
**Rating:** K+  
**Disclaimer:** Pokémon doesn't belong to Kanthia or 4Kids.

x x x

_This doesn't make any sense._

She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. Avert her eyes. It was like a train wreck- she couldn't look away, it was so terrible and powerful in its untamed angles.

_Calm down,_ she thought as panic crept up her throat. She felt as though she would vomit. _Think back. What did you do to summon this- this thing?_

It had been a beautiful, sunny day. It still was. _I woke up in the Pokémon Centre. That was normal. Um- it was sunny, right, so I wanted to fly to Cinnabar and go surfing around a bit. Nothing strange about that._

It started to approach her, whirring slightly as though it was less a Pokémon and more a vending machine. She closed her eyes. _I was going to fly to Cinnabar, right. I was in Viridian preparing to challenge the Elite Four and decided to take a day off. Right. I had all ready called out Pidgeot when that old man called me over and asked if I was busy-_

It burbled. Was that its name? Burble Burble? _I humoured him, right. He showed me how to catch a Weedle. It was pretty funny, okay, and then I said goodbye and flew over here and- _Burble slid around her like solid air- _make it stop- my Celadon Gym Badge came loose and fell into the water just by the shore so I called out Lapras and started surfing up and down looking- looking for it- and It rose out of the water like- oh-_

Maybe- she pulled out her Pokedex with shaking hands and turned to It. The handheld whirred and beeped and eventually gave up and shut off. She swallowed a fistful of tears and looked up.

"You're human," Burble said.

"You're not," she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks, staining the water blue.

"Retire your Lapras," It murmured in a voice crowded with static. "Come gsvr ,r pm ;smf- excuse me. Come face me on land."

She stepped off the trembling shell and followed Its orders, finding her knees unable to carry her terror as she stumbled into the Cinnabar shallows. The ground rushed up at her as she collapsed into the ankle-deep water and noisily heaved.

It waited patiently as she recalled her Lapras and washed her mouth out with seawater, leaving only a burning in her throat.

"You act like you've seen a ghost," It said. "I'm not a ghost. I am a _glitch_. There is a difference."

"No difference," she muttered, faltering as she struggled to her feet. "And-" she swallowed, "-What do you m-mean, Glitch?"

"Not meant to exist." Burble's voice had changed from a broken tenor to a terrifyingly clear screeching as though it was part bird; she had heard something achingly similar to it once, when she was hopelessly lost in the Cerulean Power Plant. "An error- error- ejsypt sM,r- wHAT's YoUr naME, cHiLD?"

She looked away as the floating images began to rearrange themselves. "Kira- at least- um, what's your name- sir?"

It giggled something entirely intelligible.

The sun shuddered. She tossed the words around in her head. "Em."

" 'M?"

" 'M. That's what it sounded like. The rest- 'M Block, then."

"I'm not a ghost. I'm a _glitch._"

"You said that all ready." She could feel her terror surge like a waterfall. "I don't even know why I haven't woken up yet."

"Not a nightmare," 'M chortled in a deep bass. "Luck. A _glitch_. Call out one of yours and fight me. I can battle, you know- Water Gun, Water Gun, Sky Attack-"

"-So you're a Pokémon. Only Pokémon can fight other Pokémon." She forced a laugh and regretted it quickly. "Maybe- maybe if I catch you, you'll go away."

"I'll delete everything you own. I'll steal your name, dark one. I dis-" Its voice changed to a threatening soprano- "I would dislike being taken from this place."

She believed It entirely. "I'll run, then."

"Good."

She blinked. "Good?" Fresh tears bunched up in the corners of her eyes. "What do you mean, good? Don't you- aren't you- what are you?"

A cold wind picked up and she felt her heart in her ears as the unholy pixels dissociated and reformed around her. "I'll leave you a gift. You're lucky for finding me, Pokémon Trainer." Hundreds of hands fled to her item pouch and stole it- from a place deep inside herself, she could hear something counting, and someone watching.

"Your sixth is a Master Ball- so it was you who saved Saffron from the Rockets. Congratulations."

"P-please, don't take it. It was a- a gift."

"I'll leave you a gift in return, for your kindness. Please visit me again sometime. You haven't become a Master yet, have you?"

"…No."

"Good." The wind howled in her ears and forced her eyes closed. "I never did like records of things."

She felt her pouch in her hands. It was too heavy.

Carefully and without warning, she lost her mind.


	2. Glitch City

**Glitch City**  
_/it was the type of thing that could devour the world if it was careless_

**Word Count:** 2 387  
**Rating:** K  
**Disclaimer:** Pokemon does not belong to Kanthia.  
**Kanthia notes: **Only, what, two years later. Sorry for the massive amounts of fail and brain-hurt.

x x x

She was shivering in the wake of the dream when she woke up.

Three hundred and sixty-four days had passed since the nightmares had started, and she was beginning to wonder if she would ever sleep peacefully again. It seemed that every time she closed her eyes she was back there- small, fragile, the smell of dread and the sea in her nose, a mass of chaos rising out of the water-

It was calling her.

The room was dark and the floor was cold as she dressed slowly in the struggling light of dawn. Curled up in a corner of the room, Clefable opened one eye and protested weakly before yawning and falling back to a place she couldn't find.

Distracted, she comforted herself by running her fingers through the pink down of her partner.

_A mass of chaos rising out of the water-_

x x x

Joy pushed forward a bowl of granola that promised to be delicious despite its mass-produced flavour. She was a little overworked compared to her sisters in other cities- especially with what had gone on in Viridian the past year.

"You look exhausted," she said in a tone that was only slightly disturbing in its cheer. "How has it been for you, lately?"

"Terrible." The food tasted like cardboard in her mouth. All of her senses seemed dull lately. "It's been a year, Joy. It's all my fault. I don't think the world'll ever really recover."

"Things will get better. They've managed to stop the selling of replicated nuggets, right?"

"Only by stopping sales of nuggets entirely. Joy, you watch the news. They have to run tests on the Pokémon of trainers wanting to challenge the Indigo Four. _Drug tests_, Joy. It's sickening what people will do to their beloved partners just to win a title. You remember the Machoke who was killed after an overdose of Protein and Rare Candy, don't you?"

Joy shuddered before turning away to help a better person. Kira picked up a newspaper.

There was a funerary service being held that afternoon for the poor old man. Death had been a month prior- age, stress, madness. The day she had first met him, he had been a polite and generous man who asked trainers if they were busy. Now he was Public Enemy Number One. Everyone was breathing easier; his death was more important than his life. Only research had kept his body out of the ground.

There was a short interview with Blaine, detailing how the Legion of Leaders had roped off the coast and put it under maximum security, but were unable to keep trainers from finding It. Massive inflation had thrown Kanto into absolute chaos a week after an unknown female trainer had been found screaming and clawing at the ground in a fit of insanity in front of the Fuchsia City Safari Zone.

Koga was good with secrets. He had protected her identity, but a trainer in his gym had overheard her babbling about how she had seen It and decided to try for himself when he saw the terrible number of Silph Trademark Master Balls spilling onto the floor. Word spread like a fire in Viridian Forest.

All she remembered was waking up in the Viridian Pokemon Centre when it was too late. It was all her fault. And now a world was in chaos, a man was dead, and a mistake that never should have existed was catering to the wills of those it hated most.

"-here. Kira, are you listening to me?"

She looked up into Joy's face over her untouched breakfast.

"N-no. What were you saying?"

"You need to get out of here. Take a break from waiting to get better and being alone with your Pokemon. Get out there and have some fun, meet some people, why don't you?"

"I can't."

"You can't?"

She looked down. Everything seemed both clear and unfocussed at the same time. "It took my memories, and I took Its solitude. I need to give back what I took from It- I have to find It again. You know. Tell It how sorry I am."

x x x

Pidgeot burbled happily as they flew, and she smiled thinly while leaning forward into the wind. It was a peacefully warm day. Her mind sauntered casually from place to place- from the exhausting search of Silph Company and her precious Lapras as a reward, to the breathtaking tower of flames she had witnessed in Victory Road that just could have been a Moltres. But every time she remembered things, she remembered the thing she would rather not have and needed to force herself elsewhere.

Perhaps the Safari Zone, with its passionate privacy, would quiet unholy thoughts.

x x x

She landed carefully in front of the entrance building, humming a tune that called legends out of the sea in times of peril. A token fee was exchanged for a bag of Safari Balls (so weak that no trainer bothered to sneak them out afterwards) and she stepped out into the sun.

Her estimate was wrong- it was wickedly hot, the sun beating down mercilessly on the grassy plains. Her throat was dry immediately.

"Leaving so soon?"

"Oh- no. Thanks."

Maybe she kept thinking about It because It was the only thing that was real anymore. The thought caused her to laugh. What was she thinking? If anything, only It was not real. Besides, It would never return. Only the carefully selected words of that poor dead man had-

Had she just tried to leave? Silly things happened when she forgot to pay attention to her actions. Feeling drowsy and vaguely amused, she made a quick note of her faults in her worn-out journal and made her way out of the entrance once again.

"Would you like to join the hunt?"

She stared at the man sitting behind the counter. He seemed to not be joking, though that line was reserved for trainers going in, not out. "No, sorry."

As though his unorthodox words were a prophecy, she called out her Pidgeot and flew to Cinnabar Island.

x x x

She remembered what Cinnabar had once been. It had been a wildly passionate island bustling with activity- scientists raving about reincarnating fossilized Pokemon, treasure hunters stealing into the Mansion for a rare glimpse of a Magmar, men whispering to one another about icy birds and volcanoes that threatened their little slice of reality in the hectic world. No more of that. The Cinnabar before her was dusty and grey, as if its colours were slowly being sucked away. There was not a soul in sight.

_Poor Blaine_. That man had once been a fan of fire and zeal, the good island life.

The blasphemous eastern coastline was still roped off, yellow tape uselessly fluttering in a warm sea breeze. She dipped her foot in the water; it was cold, but not too cold. The sky overhead was gray in a contrast to the humid air pressing down like a mass of regret. Lapras made its way out waist and motioned with its fins, as if to ask its trainer to take a ride.

She wasn't really sure what she was doing, but she climbed on and wrapped her arms around her partner's neck as if it was a safe place. There was a terrible ringing in her head that was starting to cause a migraine, and faintly she could hear the cries of land-dwellers rising from the water.

She was looking for It, and It wasn't here. Well. There were worse things in the world-

_Ding dong. Time's up!_

-She blinked twice and was back in Fuchsia.

x x x

"Did you have a good time?" The man at the counter was the same, the same, everything was all right.

_I'm having a lapse of memory. I dreamed I went back to that place. I dreamed I flew to Cinnabar and rode Lapras on its coast, and suddenly I ended up back in the entrance of the Safari Zone._ She took a shaky breath and nodded her head, barely recalling the question directed to her in the midst of trying to create the feeling of waking from a dream.

The false thoughts of peace and sleep calmed her somewhat, and without pausing to notice the muted sounds of confusion pouring from outside she pushed open the door and stepped into the blinding white chaos.

x x x

The first thing she did was scream.

She screamed for a long time. Then she cried, and when she was done crying she wiped her bloodshot eyes and looked around.

The- the _place_ sprawled out before her was like the inside of a computer. Blindingly white, the ground was formed of large squares taken from places far away; a square of the yellow tile in Celadon City, a square of the hard-packed earth from Pallet Town. A cave entrance with no cave behind it. Walls springing out of the ground, covered in nonsensical numerals. Numbers everywhere. The ground rolled like water, like it wasn't real.

_Maybe I'm inside Bill's PC. Maybe this is what my Pokemon see._ She called out Clefable who looked around and back at her trainer, her expression as terrified as the pink Pokemon could manage. Kira returned it and held in her tears.

There was a choked melody hanging in the air, heavy with the scent of dread and the sea.

It was the smell that clued her in at first, of course- the fear and confusion swimming under salt and sky.

"Welcome, Dark One," It said, appearing from a wave in the ground. "Welcome home."

x x x

"Not my home," she said.

"_My_ home," It said, standing before her in all Its horrifying glory, a handful of polygons given a life. "And therefore home to you as well. How have you been?"

Her throat burned and the taste of bile filled her mouth. "Been better," she managed after a while. "Been…better."

It rolled over and stopped a few feet in front of her. "I could say the same about myself," It said.

She nodded. "My fault. I- my fault, I'm sorry." _It's not right, it's not supposed to all come out at once_. Her head was spinning twelve ways at once in thirteen different speeds. She felt a weakness in her knees.

"Kira." It appeared to be in thought. "Marowak, yes? The ghosts of the living. Who cries for you?"

"You're not talking like last time," she forced out.

"Like how?"

"Broken," she whispered as she sank to the ground. There was a cry of protest from the half-water earth. "S-something not meant to exist. A glitch. And this is your home?"

"Yes, yes. Myself and the missing. No, we have lived here since the creation of the world."

"Yourself and the missing?"

"Myself and the missing. No."

"Yourself and the missing no."

It burbled in agreement. She plucked a numeral from the ground and played with it, the smooth and almost frictionless surface of the code that made up their world.

_It's not __**real.**_

"It's not real," she said. "Nothing is, is it? This is all a dream- someone's dream. It's a _game_, M Block! We're caught up in a _**game**_!"

"As real as the grass growing alongside Pallet Town," It said. "Who climbed the walls to plant it? Who chose that Mew, mother of us all, would appear to those who teleport away from battle and fight Slowpoke on bridges? Who forgot to prrrOPPERLY CODE CINnnnAbAR ISLanD?"

Glitch City roared and thundered in agreement, and with a sudden surge of fear Kira leapt to her feet and ran somewhere, anywhere. After no more than seven steps she collided with solid air and fell to the ground, a laceration on her forehead leaking blood.

M' rolled over. She could barely make It out through her hazy vision, but it was the fuzziness that gave it shape- a bird, a bird of paradise.

"Bird," she said, mumbling through weak lips. "Not Flying. Bird."

"Not meant to fly," It said. A hundred thousand arms made their way under her and lifted her up again. Unable to properly stand, she called out Lapras and collapsed onto its shell. The broken land gave way to water until it was all she could see.

"If you swim north," It said, beginning to fade away, "You may find yourself trapped south of Cinnabar island. Can you fly?"

"Have Pidgeot," she mumbled.

"Good." The sea air was blowing It apart. "It's the only way out of my home, I'm afraid. Those who cannot fly will never leave this place."

"You too, then," she said. "Birds can't fly."

It shook itself and seemed to smile as It disappeared.

x x x

Cinnabar Island's been gone for three years, destroyed by the volcano it was built on. Blaine's moved into Seafoam Islands. Articuno doesn't nest there anymore, not with all the fire and commotion, but they had to find him a place to have his gym.

They say that if you venture into the inhabitable depths of the Cinnabar Volcano, you'll find a woman- maybe seventeen, eighteen years old- living there. She'll look up from her old books, offer you a cup of tea, ask if you want a Silph Trademark Masterball. Blue's been looking for that girl, but she's become harder to find lately.

I've seen her, though. I've seen that lady, sitting alone inside the island. See- yeah, Silph Trademark. Saving it if I ever see that Entei again. We made some small talk about things in the outside world, if there was a man in Viridian who offered to show you how to catch a Weedle, how the Fuchsia Safari Zone is doing.

She wasn't surprised when I told her there was no man and no Safari Zone, of course- just kind of looked off and sighed, and mentioned off-handedly that they must have done that to prevent it from showing up again and to stop people from going there.

I don't get what she meant, really. But I sometimes think that she saw the secret of our world, and doesn't know whether she wants more to forget or find her way back.

x x x


End file.
